March 16: Oscar Winning Pigs

On this day in 1934, an Oscar was presented to Disney for his short subject cartoon The Three Little Pigs at the 6th Academy Awards. Ironically it beat out Disney's own Building a Building and Walter Lantz's The Merry Old Soul.
Originally released on May 27, 1933 (by United Artists) The Three Little Pigs was directed by Burt Gillett and based on the famous fairy tale of the same name. The short was remarkably successful with audiences of the early 1930s, so much that theaters ran the cartoon for months after its debut! The short's original song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf," written by composer Frank Churchill, went on to be a best-selling single and an anthem of the Great Depression.
The Three Little Pigs featured the voices of Pinto Colvig (as Practical Pig), Billy Bletcher (as the Big Bad Wolf), Mary Moder (as Fiddler Pig), and Dorothy Compton (as Fifer Pig).
In 1994, it was voted #11 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time.
"That was the first time that anybody ever brought characters to life in an animated cartoon. They were three characters who looked alike and acted differently." -veteran animator Chuck Jones

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